CHICAGO — It may seem like winter, but this is actually the Sikora Season, a time when local actor Joseph Sikora will be more common than a snowstorm and a lot more entertaining.
There he is in the fourth and final season of “Ozark,” the Netflix series in which he plays the son of a Kansas City mobster. His character, working for his father, caused all sorts of trouble which eventually resulted in a final episode of the third season, in which he was shot in his car at close range. It would seem like the deathly end, but was not.
There he is, the star in the upcoming film, “Fear,” which premieres Feb. 11 and in which he plays a novelist whose plan to propose to a woman gets derailed at a haunted country lodge. It’s a horror movie, filmed in California in August 2020 and directed by Deon Taylor, who was born in Chicago and raised in Gary, Indiana.
Not enough? Well, for the most prominent presence of this season, he appears Feb. 6 as the star of the first season of the new Starz series, “Power Book IV: Force.”
And I do mean starring. He was in the very successful six-year run on the original “Power,” the creation of Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Courtney Kemp. He played Tommy Egan, a viciously ambitious New York City drug dealer in cahoots with James “Ghost” St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick), who died at the end of the last episode. Sikora was a white character in what was predominantly a Black cast.
And he has found TV life after death. “Force” is the third spinoff from “Power,” after “Power Book II: Ghost,” which focuses on Ghost’s son Tariq (Michael Rainey, Jr.) and “Power Book III: Raising Kanan,” which provides the back story for a “Power” character and drug lord named Kanan Stark (played by Jackson).
There was good reason for this expansion of this universe. As a Starz original series, “Power” debuted in 2014 to 500,000-some households, according to Nielsen ratings. Add in the numbers from Starz’s digital-based streaming service, and “Power,” averaged roughly 10 million viewers per episode, making it during its run the network’s most-watched show ever.
Understandably, hopes are high for “Force,” in which Tommy, on his way to the West Coast, makes a stop in a snow-covered Chicago to revisit a murky past. In short time, he gets involved with some of our local gangsters and, sensing an opportunity, decides to stay, his ambition to become the city’s biggest drug dealer.
Social media has been abuzz for months about this new show and for a more striking example there is Sikora’s face adorning a massive billboard that sits above LA’s Sunset Strip.
“Am I anxious?” Sikora said, on the phone riding in a car in New York City. “Not anxious at all because so much is out of my control. Do I hope people watch? Of course.”
Such is the sensible nature of an actor born and raised on the Northwest Side. As a child he appeared with Michael Jordan in a commercial for McDonald’s and, with some detours along the way, fashioned a fine career, which included getting a degree in theater from Columbia College, working on local stages at the Goodman, Lookingglass and Shattered Globe, where he became and remains an ensemble member.
In 2000 he started to seek work in New York and Los Angeles and wound up with small parts in some TV shows and films. What he calls “my first big job” was in the 2003 HBO film “Normal,” followed by appearances in such shows as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Criminal Minds,” “Without a Trace,” and a riveting two-part “Law & Order: SVU” in 2010. In film, he was in “Safe” (starring Jason Statham), “Jack Reacher” (Tom Cruise) and “Shutter Island” (Leonardo DiCaprio). Then came a part in the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” and a prominent role in HBO’s “True Detective.”
When he was cast, after five arduous auditions, in “Power,” he told me, “Parts like this just don’t come around often, if ever. The first time I read the script I really, really wanted it. I knew I could murder this role. In a sense this show is about following your dreams. Even getting this role was like realizing a dream for me. I have always believed that my dreams would come true. I knew something like this was going to happen, believed in my heart.”
“Force” was filmed here last winter and features many actors recognizable to any film and television viewer as well as some welcome local faces, prominently that of Guy Van Swearingen, a longtime veteran of many stage roles, founding artistic director of A Red Orchid (and currently in its production of “The Moors”) and for many years a lieutenant for the Chicago Fire Department.
“I’ve known Joe for a long time, since the ‘90s,” he told me. “He let me know about the show coming in to shoot here and I auditioned, getting the role of what I describe as ‘the consigliere to an Irish mob boss.’” He will appear in all but one of the show’s 10 episodes and enjoyed filming.
“We worked really hard, were deeply committed in ways that some other shows just aren’t. We were collectively hungrier, but in a good way,” he said. “I’ve got a meaty role, a character that evolves through this first season. I’ve got my fingers crossed that we get to do more.”
As for Sikora, he has nothing but praise, saying, “He’s just a genuine guy and, you what? He’s got presence. He reminds me of James Cagney.”
I was able to see the first episode and it neatly sets the stage for future twists, some of them familial, some criminal, for romances and violence. The episode has a palpable feel for some of Chicago’s meaner streets, accompanied by striking visuals.
“The show reminds me of ‘Crime Story,’” says Phil Donlon, referring to the great NBC series in the mid-1980s, starring the late Dennis Farina. “It has a real feel for the city and is filled with great and gritty actors.”
Donlon, who plays who plays the “muscle” for the gang lord in the series, is a child of Bridgeport and veteran of the local theater scene. He studied acting here and headed for Los Angeles in 2001, where he soon directed a short film, “Wrestled.”
His 2013 “The Man in the Silo,” which he directed and cowrote, was produced and edited by Chicago’s Steven Ordowerand stars Ernie Hudson, of “Ghostbusters” renown. Less than an hour long, when I first saw it I called it “compelling and spooky and thrilling.”
He had his biggest and best role in 2017 in ”High & Outside: A Baseball Noir,” starring opposite Geoffrey Lewis in what would be that longtime character actor’s final movie.
Sikora and Donlon are close friends and mutual admirers and so it was a bit jarring watching Sikora beat the daylights out of Donlon, who plays a muscled henchman for a crime boss in “Force.” Yes, I know it’s just TV, but the fight scene is chillingly realistic, down to much blood and a “broken arm.”
“That was something, wasn’t it?” said Donlon. “Getting beaten up by my best friend. They were going to use stunt men but just let us go at it. It took hours and hours.
“It was great to be part of this. Since we were young actors, we would talk about what it would be like one day if we got a shot and Joe has finally got his and he’s making the most of it.”
———
